William Smellie (obstetrician)

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William Smellie, born 1697 in Lanark, Scotland, died March 5, 1763 in Lanark, was a preeminent obstetrician and has been called the father of British midwifery.

He practiced medicine before getting a licence, but enrolled later at the University of Glasgow and received his M.D. degree in 1745. After training in obstetrics in London and Paris, he opened a practice in London and began teaching. He invented a "machine", an obstetrical manikin, for instructions. Smellie described the mechanism of labor, designed obstetrical forceps, devised a maneuver to deliver the head of a breech, and published his teachings. He is believed to have painted his own portrait.

[edit] Reference

• Speert, H. Obstetric and Gynecologic Milestones (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1958).

[edit] External links

• William Smellie: A sett of anatomical tables, with explanations, and an abridgment, of the practice of midwifery (London, 1749)]. Selected pages scanned from the original work. Historical Anatomies on the Web. US National Library of Medicine.